"Trump’s narcissism is a Trojan Horse. The men inside it have clearer agendas, fewer domestic constraints, and thirty years more patience. Netanyahu handed Trump a war Israel has wanted since at least 2007, one Netanyahu needed personally to stay out of court and in power — and Netanyahu is a tactical 'genius' who never underestimates what a fourth phase could be worth."
~ Jason Sattler
#Trump #Netanyahu #Bibi #Iran #war
/1
https://thecause.substack.com/p/man-who-spat-on-allies-for-a-year
"The reporting from journalist Neri Zilber on March 9 is instructive: they’re now on phase three, systematically working down a target list — air defenses, missile systems, the Iranian Navy, and now essentially all regime infrastructure. Whether there’s a fourth phase, and whether anyone has actually thought through what regime change looks like on the other side — that’s an open question. Netanyahu’s silence on that question is all the answer we need."
"Putin, meanwhile, is watching the Hormuz chokehold deliver the oil price shock that relieves the central strain on his war machine, while American support for Ukraine quietly dries up, and Putin will soon be cashing oil checks from the US again.
Both men got what they needed by feeding one man’s need for a headline that gave him the love his parents never could."
"Netanyahu for years now has sold Israelis the same rubbish. Every crisis can be solved by bombing and strafing. Now that immoral 'strategy' is being manifested again, in Lebanon. ...
What makes this even more indefensible is how entwined this northern brinkmanship is with Netanyahu’s personal political survival."
~ Mark Mansour
#Trump #Netanyahu #Bibi #Iran #Lebanon #war
/4
https://mmansour.substack.com/p/benjamin-netanyahu-is-marching-lebanon
"By 2024 and 2025, he was already under immense domestic pressure over his corruption trial, his extremist coalition partners, and his handling of the Gaza war. Commentators and analysts have increasingly argued that he has incentives to keep the region in perpetual crisis, framing himself as the indispensable wartime leader and delaying the electoral reckoning that would likely end his career."
"I was talking to a few friends yesterday. We were talking about how every president, you know, for 46 years, ever since the Islamic Revolution, Democrats and Republicans have not really liked the Velayat-e faqih, the Islamic leaders, but none of them were dumb enough to actually be dog walked by Netanyahu and white Christian nationalists and attack Iran."
~ Wajahat Ali
#Trump #Netanyahu #Bibi #Iran #war
/7
https://thelefthook.substack.com/p/how-the-united-states-loses-the-iran
Donald Trump and the warmonger class have no exit strategy from this disastrous war and severely underestimated Iran's resolve. The longer this chaos lasts, the more America loses.
"Some of the winners are obvious: Russia and oil producers everywhere except in the Persian Gulf. The losers may come as a surprise: American consumers are being hit hard even though the US produces more oil and natural gas than it consumes, while China, despite its dependence on imported hydrocarbons, is relatively insulated from this shock."
~ Paul Krugman
#Trump #Netanyahu #Bibi #Putin #Iran #Israel #Russia #war
/8
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/costs-and-benefits-from-the-new-energy
Robert Reich asks who’s getting the most out of Trump’s war. His list (it doesn't include the American people, by the way):
Pete Hegseth’s “Department of War”
Top military contractors
Larry Ellison’s Oracle
Elon Musk’s SpaceX
Peter Thiel’s Palantir Technologies
Big Oil
Jared Kushner
Vladimir Putin
#Trump #Putin #Hegseth #JaredKushner #ElonMusk #LarryEllison #PeterThiel #Iran #Israel #Russia #war #oil #gas
/9
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/sunday-thought-follow-the-war-money
"Kushner recently met in Florida with Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund and a longtime financial emissary for Vladimir Putin. Dmitriev is not simply a diplomat; he is effectively Putin’s bag man."
~ Julie Roginsky
#Trump #Putin #JaredKushner #SteveWitkoff #JoshGruenbaum #AffinityPartners #Iran #Russia #war
/10
https://saltypolitics.substack.com/p/how-jared-is-selling-us-out-to-the
"The meeting also included Trump envoy Steve Witkoff, another billionaire with vested personal financial interests, whose son runs the Trump family’s shady and opaque crypto fund, World Liberty Financial. The third notable figure at the meeting was Trump administration official Josh Gruenbaum.
The Florida meeting was ostensibly a discussion about ending the war in Ukraine."
#Trump #Putin #JaredKushner #SteveWitkoff #JoshGruenbaum #AffinityPartners #Iran #Russia #war
/11
"Kushner holds no official diplomatic title that would normally authorize such talks but titles are beside the point in the Trump era. What matters is proximity to power, and Kushner has that in abundance.
What he also has is a private equity firm called Affinity Partners, which is funded by billions of dollars in foreign governments."
#Trump #Putin #JaredKushner #SteveWitkoff #JoshGruenbaum #AffinityPartners #Iran #Russia #war
/12
"The war with Iran is threatening to raise global food prices as shipping disruptions through the Strait of Hormuz stall fertilizer exports critical for agriculture."
~ Aaron Parnas
#Trump #Iran #war #StraitofHormuz #oil #gas #fertilizer #agriculture #food
/13
https://aaronparnas.substack.com/p/news-trump-administration-threatens-62e
Good evening everyone.
"With nearly one-third of key fertilizer ingredients and a large share of global urea and ammonia exports tied to the region, attacks on ships and halted transit are driving up fertilizer, oil, and diesel prices—raising costs for farmers and potentially leading to higher grocery prices and lower crop yields worldwide."
#Trump #Iran #war #StraitofHormuz #oil #gas #fertilizer #agriculture #food
/14
"We are just two weeks and a day into the Iran war—a war that has no discernible purpose; a war undertaken at the behest of a genocidal war criminal who as I type this is either dead, infirm, or in hiding like a coward; a war that seems intended to distract from the Epstein Files and forestall the release of proof of our president’s singular depravity;
~ Greg Olear
"a war that will likely bankrupt the country; a war that will cause a global recession and worldwide suffering; a war that most Americans do not support; a war that began with U.S. planes killing scores of girls at a school; a war in which we have ceded the moral high ground to the fucking Ayatollah. ...
In this New World Order, the United States is no longer #1."
Yes, I have been pondering this.
The decisions and communication of the US administration are low in quality and morally bankrupt, that the only option for this not to spiral out of control is that if indeed the Iranians and the Muslim majority in the Middle-East turn out to be the adults in the room.
Yes, so two sets of not so nice people, of which one set is behaving at least as adults.
They are not comparable, and yet it is bewildering.
William Lindsey 
spdrnl
rob
Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷